Chongzhen's domineering

Chapter 258 The Rise of the Fushe Society and Reckless Talks about Government Politics (Part 2)

On the ninth day of the second lunar month, the Xinwei imperial examination officially began.

The candidates from the two capitals and thirteen provinces of the Ming Dynasty who came to take the imperial examinations were all like they had been injected with chicken blood. They rushed to the examination hall before dawn, hoping to pass the exams with flying colors and rise to prominence.

This grand imperial examination event attracted a great deal of attention; officials in the outer court, scholars in the capital, and even ordinary people were all discussing it.

Zhu Jue, however, didn't care at all.

He is currently focusing all his attention on the construction of the pharmaceutical factory.

The ruins of Wanshou Palace are just a few steps away from Yuxi Palace. After reviewing the memorials every day, he would almost always be busy at the pharmaceutical factory construction site.

The pharmaceutical factory's buildings didn't have any special requirements. When they first started building specialized equipment, they couldn't build anything too big. So, building a few rows of large open spaces, each a little over ten feet high, was about right.

With cement readily available, and steel and timber also readily available, the factory could be built incredibly quickly.

They started work at the end of January, and by the end of February, the factory was almost finished, the boilers were almost all installed, and many pieces of equipment had been brought over for installation and testing.

On that day, Song Yingxing also brought over the newly developed drying equipment.

Zhu Jue started assembling the equipment in the factory around 9 a.m. with Song Yingxing and a group of craftsmen, and worked on it until the afternoon. He even had lunch in the factory with everyone else.

As for why he was so engrossed in his work, it was because this drying equipment was a brand new, large machine with many functions that could be used not only in pharmaceuticals but also in many other industries.

This drying equipment is enormous; it is over ten zhang long and taller than a person, and its exterior is completely covered with steel plates and cotton padding.

Of course, the outer shell is not the main point. Such heat-insulating shells existed in the Ming Dynasty long ago and were installed on many ships.

The most important component of this drying equipment is a hemp rope mesh cloth that is more than 20 feet long, or rather, a hemp rope woven conveyor belt.

Conveyor belts are very common in later generations, found on many types of equipment. They are not just made of hemp rope, but also of various materials such as nylon, fiber, rubber, and fiber plus rubber. There are simply too many types to list.

However, there is no conveyor belt at this moment.

The reason Zhu Jue had been keeping an eye on things in the factory was because of this conveyor belt.

This is a great thing; it can be used in many places.

They worked for most of the day, and the huge drying equipment was finally assembled.

Upon seeing this, Zhu Jue said impatiently, "Chang Geng, quick, start the steam engine that drives the rollers and give it a try."

Song Yingxing couldn't wait to run over and slammed open a steam valve.

The rollers wrapped by the conveyor belt immediately began to rotate slowly, and the conveyor belt moved slowly as well.

This thing is actually quite simple. It's just a conveyor belt woven into a circle supported by several rollers, with the first roller having a rubber sheet that can rotate. That's all.

However, something this simple has never appeared before.

Song Yingxing's eyes lit up as he watched the slowly rotating conveyor belt.

These days His Majesty has told him a lot about the functions of this conveyor belt, such as conveying ores, raw and clinker cement, porcelain blanks, assembly parts for muskets and cannons, and even loading and unloading goods at the docks.

He also realized that once this thing was developed, it could improve the production efficiency of countless industries.

Now that this thing is finally finished, how could he not be incredibly excited?

Zhu Jue wasn't as excited as Song Yingxing, because he already knew that the biggest problem with the conveyor belt was that it would go off-center. As for whether it would turn or not, as long as the rubber roller could rotate, the conveyor belt would definitely be able to rotate.

There wasn't a good solution to the problem of the conveyor belt veering off course at the moment, so he used the simplest method: installing steel baffles on both sides of the conveyor belt to prevent it from veering off course.

Fortunately, the conveyor belt rotates slowly and with little force, so the baffles prevent any problems.

He examined it carefully, then decisively waved his hand and said, "Chang Geng, open the heating valve inside, turn on the fans on both sides, and then try feeding the material."

This is the real test of the dryer's functionality.

They used steam to dry it directly. The dryer was filled with steam pipes at the bottom and had several fans inside that blew hot air onto the raw material. The raw material was a paste made by mixing medicinal juices and potato starch.

Soon, steam was supplied, and the fans on both sides started turning. Hot air was being sprayed out of the feed inlet and outlet, and the temperature in the entire factory soared. Outside, it was still freezing cold, but inside, it was sweltering.

The craftsmen also brought over several carts of raw materials and started placing them on the conveyor belt.

The paste, made by mixing the medicinal juices and potato starch, was placed in a rectangular copper frame, similar to the drawer of a modern rice steamer. The paste was only about an inch thick, and at the slow speed of the conveyor belt, it took about fifteen minutes to go from the inlet to the outlet.

If you were to use a steam pipe to bake it directly, it wouldn't be enough to dry the inch-thick paste inside the copper frame in 15 minutes. However, with this sealed dryer, and the fan inside constantly blowing hot air onto the paste, drying it in 15 minutes doesn't seem to be a problem.

Song Yingxing was still standing at the discharge port, looking a little anxious, as if he was afraid that the material wouldn't dry properly.

Zhu Jue, however, remained completely calm.

Sure enough, the raw ingredients came out and became as hard and crunchy as biscuits.

With this dryer, pharmaceutical factories can manufacture tablets at an astonishing speed. Don't underestimate the fact that this paste is only an inch thick; after being ground into powder, a one-inch thick batch of paste can be pressed into at least a thousand small tablets.

As for the crusher, the press, and even the stamping die, they had already prepared them long ago.

Zhu Jue was just about to have the craftsmen crush the dried raw materials and press out some pills when Sun Yuanhua and Guan Shaoning came in with a huge scroll.

The list of successful candidates has been released!

Seeing this, Zhu Jue was eager to have Sun Yuanhua and Guan Shaoning unfurl the list of successful candidates.

He also wanted to see if any of the talents from this department would be remembered in history.

Upon seeing this, he couldn't help but frown.

Quite a few people from this department have made their mark on history, but the problem is, he had already heard of these people long ago.

Chen Yutai, Wu Weiye, Xia Rihu, Cao Jingcan, Wang Yinmao, Lü Yijing, Du Linzheng, Zhang Pu, Yang Yiren, Ma Shiqi, Guan Zhengchuan, Zhou Zhikui, Liu Shidou!

There must be countless members of the Fushe Society on the list of successful candidates in the imperial examinations!

He specifically had someone investigate the Fuxing Society, so he was naturally very familiar with these names.

Wu Weiye is Wu Meicun, and Zhang Pu is the head of the Fushe Society!

Did these guys cram for the imperial examinations specifically for this year's provincial and palace examinations? It's amazing how many of them made the list.

With so many Jinshi (successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations) emerging from the Fushe Society, wouldn't its strength have increased dramatically?
Does he need to crush these guys?

The rise of the Fushe Society was not a good thing for him.

He frowned and pondered for a while, then decided to give up.

To him, the Fushe Society was nothing but a bunch of clowns, and he had no need to establish bad rules just to suppress them.

Besides, if he were to openly break the rules, these clowns would only jump around even more, and he wouldn't need to waste his time on them.

The pharmaceutical factory was completed very quickly, and all kinds of machinery and equipment were quickly assembled and debugged, and tablets began to be mass-produced.

The palace examination started and ended quickly. Countless members of the Fushe Society made it onto the list, and the top three in the first class and the top three in the second class were all taken by these guys!

Zhu Jue didn't pay attention to it; he was busy developing the medicine.

To his surprise, early that morning around 7 a.m., when he arrived at the main hall of Yuxi Palace, he found that the memorials on the desk were much thicker than usual.

He flipped through the memorials and glanced at them; the extra memorials were all from those clowns from the Fushe Society.

These guys actually started making irresponsible remarks about politics the moment they entered the court!

(End of this chapter)